Represented, that is. And an irksome question it is, too.

Case in point: Dear Hubby, also a licensed realtor, contacted a FSBO today. FSBO sign in the yard, from one of those online FSBO sites. 'See this house on...' - you know what I'm talking about. Clearly someone representing himself. So hubby calls the number on the sign, and the owner agrees to come out and show him the house. While he waits, hubby calls me, and that's when we find out that the house is also listed on the MLS. At which point, of course, hubby puts any ideas of soliciting the listing out of his head. I mean, the owner is represented by a realtor, right?

Now, here's the thing. This is a nice house. Listed at $350,000, which is a fairly high price for my neck of the woods. (A little overpriced, probably, but still.) Nicely renovated 1930s craftsman bungalow with some very nice features. On the MLS, there's one picture of the front, nothing of anything else. Hubby asked why no more pictures, since pictures will help sell the house, and the owner said that the agent charges $25 per picture in addition to the $700 sign-up fee he charged to put the house on the MLS. The agent is doing no advertising beyond the MLS. The owner is listed as the contact person for showings, with name and number in the realtor remarks.

So here's my question: At this point, is this a represented or an unrepresented seller? He has signed some kind of contract, obviously, but if he's still in charge of showings and receiving offers himself, is he represented or representing himself? He's absolutely convinced he's doing the right thing, by the way, and that he's saving $10,000 by signing with a flat-fee MLS-only agent, since all listing agents are lazy slobs and the buyer's agents are the real go-getters (I quote), so he wouldn't sign with a full-service agent anyway (it's a waste of money, you see), but boy, would I love a chance to explain to him that if the house doesn't sell, he'll be out $725, whereas, if he listed it with a full-service realtor and it didn't sell, we'd be out $725 or likely a lot more, and he wouldn't have spent a dime. And I wouldn't even charge him extra for taking pictures!

I just received a... I guess solicitation would be the right word, from someone who claimed to be with HGTV's House Hunters looking for agents and their clients to appear on the show. My husband and I got one each. (Actually, he got two, but that was probably just due to a quick trigger-finger.) The emails came through our Point2 site. Are the rest of you getting them? Are they legit? What would you do if you did get one? 

We all know that photos sell houses, right? We've all seen listings with lousy photos, haven't we? We've all laughed at the dismal photos that some (other) agents take. Virtual tours of bad photos make the rounds every so often, giving us all a good chuckle.

Now, I have a problem, and it's the opposite of lousy photos. A few times lately, I've been told that my photos make the listing look too good, and that potential buyers are disappointed when they see it in person. It isn't that I'm cheating and posting photos of things that aren't in the house. I've seen that done, and it irritates me no end. I do, however, do my very best to focus on the positive. Usually, I just ignore the negative. In other words, I'll post photographs of the lovely hewn-stone fireplace, the arched doorways, the antique glass doorknobs, the built-in china cabinets. (I deal in old homes, many of them fixer-uppers.) The stained carpets that need to come out, the 1970s ceiling fans trailing cobwebs, the cracked vinyl and the ugly furniture often don't make it into the MLS. I've always thought of it as putting the house's best foot forward. My job is to get people out to see the house, and nice photos will go a long way toward doing that. But if the people who come feel that I've misrepresented the house by not putting in pictures of the - pardon me - butt-uglies, am I doing my seller any favors? Or am I, in fact, torpedoing their chances of making a sale?

What do the rest of you do? Do you post photos of everything, even the things that aren't assets? Or do you do what I do, and focus on the details if the overall picture isn't all it could be? How do you justify your decision?